A treatment cycle can vary based on the chemo regimen being used. Folfirinox is a two week cycle where on day one you get three components and go home with a portable pump for infusion of 5-FU over 46 hours. Cycle 2 begins on the 15th after the prior cycle.

Gemzar + Abraxane may be a where you receive the drug every 7th day for three weeks and the fourth week is a rest period before it repeats.

Speak with your oncologist about doing the treatment at a local facility. One word of caution- make sure the clinic you have in mind has experience in treating pancreatic cancer patients. Someone I was mentoring insisted on being treated locally. She was not tolerating the chemo well, the clinic administering the chemo did not do any dose reductions and issues arose. Upon investigation it was learned that with pancreatic cancer being rare compared to the others, no one had experience treating with Folfirinox. The patient eventually went back to the original medical center where the surgery was performed for all future treatments.

During my treatments that started with Gemzar and then was switched to Folfirinox, I chose to be treated at the medical center where I had my Whipple surgery. It had a pancreas program and treated a higher volume of pancreas patients so I was more comfortable knowing there was a higher level of expertise. It required a round trip train/subway commute of 4.5 hours but I didn’t mind it. I was used to doing that commute daily as I worked across the street from where the hospital clinic was located.

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